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  • This episode of Dnews is brought to you by Domain.com.

  • Fossil fuel energy is the most common type of power plant in the United States, but solar

  • just hit a HUGE milestone that might make them finally shine past the competition.

  • For all the talk about solar panels being better for the environment, they are still

  • notoriously inefficientor were, until now. Australian researchers from University

  • of New South Wales created the most efficient solar panels ever; these new panels convert

  • 46-percent of their sunlight energy into electricity. Typical rooftop panels hover around 15 percent

  • at best. This new technology works by distributing the solar collection into three cells picking

  • sunlight up in multiple wavelengths, and then reflecting the excess light at a fourth panel!

  • Genius!

  • So 46. PercentYepAhem… [[pause]]

  • 46% doesn't SOUND like much, does it? Right? It's less than half! Traditionally, power

  • plants usually use heat to create steam and move turbines. Those turbines generate the

  • electric current. I bet you're as curious as I was about which plants are the most efficient,

  • but they're doing better than a LOT of them.

  • To calculate efficiency of a power plant, you take the output power and heat, add that

  • together, and divide by the total amount of power produced. Essentially, you're accounting

  • for the fact that burning fuels is HOT, and you lose a lot of heat in the power transfer.

  • Let me give you an example, in the U.S., there are over 1400 coal power plants burning this

  • fossil fuel at an efficiency of about 33%. Meaning two-thirds of ALL ENERGY from coal

  • in a plant designed to use coal to create electricity is lost. Even the most efficient

  • plants are only 45 percent.

  • Nuclear energy, also measured by the previous equation, ranges from the low 30s to the high

  • 40s… With the best, most heat efficient plants topping out around 48-percent. As technology

  • improves, and the population has become more interested in environmental protection, both

  • coal and nuclear have become more efficient. But if we're all honest with each other, making

  • the plant perform better isn't easy. Instead, a quick solution is to take the heat exhaust

  • and loop it back into the plant. This conserves those extra BTU's of heat, rather than letting

  • them float away into the atmosphere. Some plants do this to conserve as much heat as

  • they can. They can also help burn the fuel more efficiently, or fine tune the plant to

  • keep it tip top.

  • Unfortunately, wind power is the big loser outside of commercial solar, but even with

  • that, they're running anywhere from 25 to 50 percent efficiency. It varies depending

  • on the design, and the location. Offshore wind farms run more often than on-shore ones,

  • but the efficiency depends on how hard the wind is blowing and how much of that wind

  • power the turbine can harvest.

  • Lots of scientists are working on making super efficient wind power. Biomimicry is a big

  • part of their recent advances, with some scientists discovering that mimicking sharks, whales

  • or birds will help make the installations capture more energy. This also informs the

  • winner and champion of ALL these power generation solutions -- hydroelectric.

  • The biggest hydroelectric installations can get a 95-percent efficiency, and even the

  • smaller ones can still hit 85. 85 is a LOT more than the next closest. It's pretty incredible.

  • But when you take into account the simplicity, the eye is drawn right back to solar. Sure,

  • coal and nuclear have a lot of bang for their buck, solar needs a lot of space, and sun

  • but while 46-percent didn't sound like a lot beforean infinitely renewable, non-polluting

  • energy solution that is essentially equal in efficiency to other major generation techniques

  • sounds pretty darn good. No?

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This episode of Dnews is brought to you by Domain.com.

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